MNHS continued the Legacy Research Fellowships program in FY15 with a productive second year of adding to the body of knowledge and interpretation of Minnesota's pre- and post-statehood history.
Four scholars were selected as research fellows. Three scholars received $5,000 awards and one received a $1,000 award. The Legacy Research Fellows used the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota History Center to research their topics, which included:
Long-term forest plot datasets are helpful for understanding the changing conditions and ecology of forestland over time. The USDA Forest Service produced statewide forest inventories in 1935, 1953, 1962, 1977, 1990, 2003, 2008, and 2013. Unfortunately, only the data from 1977 to the present is currently easily accessible and available in full.
Restores 420 acres of high-quality forests at Itasca, Jay Cooke, Scenic, Forestville Mystery Cave and Wild River State Parks and Greenleaf Lake State Recreation Area.
Amphipods are wetland invertebrates that are critical wildlife food and indicators of water quality. We will assess reasons they are missing from Prairie Potholes and unique methods to restore amphipods.
Ecological restorations aim to aid the recovery of native ecosystems that have been degraded or lost. However, very seldom are restorations evaluated past the initial implementation phase to determine whether the efforts achieved their goals and the funds spent were a strategic conservation investment. Monitoring and evaluation of restorations can teach what works and what does not in order to advance restoration practices and increase the likelihood of success for future projects.
With funding from the ACHF, 20 portraits were cleaned and are now more secure with the addition of high-quality non-glare/UV filtering plexiglass. Using the original framing, each portrait was retrofitted to accommodate the new plexiglass.
Sixteen more portraits of Minnesota governors will be cleaned and protected with the addition of high-quality, non-glare/UV filtering plexiglass. The portraits of Minnesota’s governors grace the halls of the Minnesota State Capitol and provide an important legacy of the state’s past and present leaders.
State law (M.L. 2011, First Special Session, Ch. 6) directs restoration evaluations to be conducted on habitat restoration projects completed with funds from the Parks and Trails Fund (M.S. 85.53). The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is responsible for convening a Restoration Evaluation Panel containing at least five technical experts who will evaluate a sample of up to 10 habitat restoration projects annually. The Panel will evaluate the restorations relative to the law, current science, stated goals and standards in the restoration plans, and applicable guidelines.
State law (M.L. 2011, First Special Session, Ch. 6) directs restoration evaluations to be conducted on habitat restoration projects completed with funds from the Clean Water Fund (M.S. 114.D.50 Subd. 6). The Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) is responsible for convening a Restoration Evaluation Panel containing at least five technical experts who will evaluate a sample of up to 10 habitat restoration projects annually. The Panel will evaluate the restorations relative to the law, current science, stated goals and standards in the restoration plans, and applicable guidelines.
Restore native freshwater mussel assemblages in the Mississippi, Cedar, and Canon rivers to provide necessary ecosystem services, expand imperiled species populations, and inform the public on mussels and their conservation.
Citizens will be enlisted to field-test a new method of managing carp to restore an impaired lake. Water quality & cost-effectiveness will be quantified to inform statewide implementation.
The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) will create a web-based, mobile-compatible public drainage system inspection and maintenance database. This database system will enable District staff to create and track maintenance requests and inspections from the field, including Geo-referencing locations requiring repair via a mobile device. The system will greatly reduce the time required to identify and log each maintenance request, enabling staff to inventory more miles of public drainage system yearly thereby identifying erosion problems more efficiently and thoroughly.
We propose identifying hot spots of groundwater chloride pollution of surface waters due to excessive road salt use, which is a long term source increasing chloride impairment of surface waters.
The project replaced asphalt shingles from the late 1960s with wooden shingles to complete a restoration project started in 2007, the repair the roof of the District No. 44 School, listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It involved removing two layers of shingles and inspecting the underlying sheathing, making historically accurate repairs where necessary, and re-shingling the school with wooden shingles.
Shanaya Dungey aka The Foolish Know It All will facilitate an artistic & cultural heritage preservation pilot project with five to ten Minnesota based descendants of enslaved African American ancestry to discover, collect, & document their family genealogy in a manner that is culturally relevant, preserves their family history, & honors their stories. The project will culminate with an exhibit capturing the process, participant thoughts throughout, & snippets of genealogy documents created.
The purpose of the project is to collect data to represent the ambient condition of the lakes and streams of the Rum River Watershed within Mille Lacs, Isanti and Sherburne Counties that is needed to determine if thresholds set to protect designeated uses, such as aquatic recreation and aquatic life, are being met .
This project will gather watershed data necessary for the development of a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy with parameter-specific targets that will maintain or improve water quality in the Rum River Watershed. Local Partners will lead various portions of this project and a hired onsultant will be subcontracted to write selected TMDL protection plans.
In partnership with Anoka County and landowners, Anoka Conservation District will enhance Rum River habitat by utilizing eco-sensitive, habitat-building, bioengineering approaches to address active bank erosion on three to seven reaches. Sediment delivered from bank erosion threatens fish and mussel reproduction. The Rum River is a state designated Outstanding Resource Value Water and Wild, Scenic and Recreational River with eighty actively failing riverbanks in Anoka County alone. Project partners will address these in a phased approach utilizing CWF, LSOHC, and CPL funds.
This program will acquire 550 acres of prairie, wetland, forest and shoreline habitat for fish, game and wildlife along the Rum River and Cedar Creek in the cities of Oak Grove and Andover and will provide additional opportunities for public fishing, hunting and wildlife conservation.
This project will focus on Watershed Restoration and Protetion Strategy (WRAPS) and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report development for the Rum River Watershed, which includes Mille Lacs Lake (the second largest lake in Minnesota) and the Rum River of which Mille Lacs Lake is the headwaters. The project will produce a plan that partners and citizens will be able to implement, a framework for citizen engagement, and a set of watershed management activities that will achieve water quality standards for all impairments within the watershed.
This program will acquire the remaining 328 acres of prairie, wetland, forest and shoreline habitat for fish, game and wildlife along the Rum River and Cedar Creek in the cities of Oak Grove and Andover and will provide additional opportunities for public fishing, hunting and wildlife conservation.
The Wild and Scenic Rum River is a State Water Trail linking Mille Lacs Lake to the Mississippi River. Providing habitat for SGCN across two ecological provinces, the Rum also supports game fish and waterfowl. Land conversion, drainage, increased runoff, accelerated bank erosion, and invasive species threaten ecosystem stability of the Rum River corridor.
